Côte d'Ivoire: EAIF announces funding for hydro power company
Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company, the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), announced a €25 million finance facility to Ivoire Hydro Energy (IHE), which will build a 44MW hydro electricity generation plant on the Bandama River near the village of Singrobo in Côte d’Ivoire.
EAIF’s long-term financing package enables IHE to achieve financial close for the project, catalysing the design, construction and operation of the power plant and associated infrastructure and boosting rural access to clean energy.
The new plant will be a strategic economic asset for Côte d’Ivoire, where electrification rates range from 88% in urban areas to as low as 31% in rural parts of the country.
Paromita Chatterjee, investment director at Ninety One, the fund manager for EAIF noted, “The new facility at Singrobo will be Côte d’Ivoire’s first hydro-electric development by an independent power producer. We are excited that it delivers on three of PIDG’s strategic objectives: mobilising private capital, enabling economic development and contributing to increasing Africa’s stock of renewable energy infrastructure.”
A long-term power purchase agreement will see all of the energy produced by the Singrobo plant sold to Compagnie Ivoirienne d’Electricité, the operator of Côte d’Ivoire’s national grid.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) acted as the mandated lead arranger of the debt finance and will be a senior lender in its own right. In addition to AfDB and EAIF, the other lenders are the German international development agency, DEG, and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). Furthermore, 25% of the project cost is funded by equity from the project’s shareholders, IHE Holding, the Africa Finance Corporation and DIPFA, a Denham Capital-owned international investment platform for power projects. Neo Themis SARL is advising and acting for the shareholders in relation to finalising the project’s development and the financing agreements.
The project site is located on the Bandama River, 23 km downstream of the existing Taabo Dam and upstream of the confluence of the Nzi River. It is 3.5 km from the Singrobo village in the province of Taabo and 148km by road from Côte d’Ivoire’s capital city, Abidjan.